


Ye Cannot Serve God and Mammon

by spikesgirl58



Series: octoberwriting [2]
Category: Batman (Movies 1989-1997)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:25:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spikesgirl58/pseuds/spikesgirl58
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Whacha mean?"  Sam took a few steps towards him, then stopped as if an invisible wall had erected itself.  He laughingly referred to it as his wall of protection, a buffer zone between him and danger.  It was a sense that had kept him alive and safe for years.  Sort of like the big moats they used at the zoo for the big cats, a safe zone between them and the public.  You could look all you want, but you were protected at the same time all without a restricted view.</p><p>Sam was puzzled though.  Why had it happened here, in a church, talking to a bishop?  There was no apparent danger.  The bishop was a man of the cloth, after all.  This was a holy place, a safe haven for anyone who sought it out</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ye Cannot Serve God and Mammon

 

The sun gave birth to a rainbow-colored explosion of color that washed across his face as he stood, looking up at the stained glass windows of the apse.  It made him pause and reflect about life, his life, for just a moment. 

 

This was odd because Sam Gearhart was not an especially religious man.  By trade, he was a thief.  By necessity he was a man of little imagination and even fewer flights of fantasy.  He had a business to run, a wife, three kids and a mother-in-law to support.  There simply was not time to dawdle in day dreams.

 

Yet as the sun streamed through, splashing its hues recklessly as if it was a drunk painter, crazed with and by the pallet it wielded, Sam paused and thought about destiny. 

 

The reflection blanketed the thief in complementary colors until he felt that he too was part of the stained glass, part of the church itself.

 

His destination had not originally been the church.  It had been the nearby Flughelm museum.  There was a display of Cycladic fertility idols, small unimpressive things to Sam's way of thinking, but he wasn't paid to think...at least not that way.  His client had been very specific about Sam's task.

 

Sam had walked past the displays of ancient gold and jewels, past priceless paintings and valuable manuscripts and to the case containing the figures.   His client has been very specific about what was to be taken, how many and where they were to be brought.  Everything else he had left up to Sam.

 

Sam had slipped into the museum last night, lifted the figures and then, with the help of a ladder employed as a gangplank, a rope and sheer nerve, he'd moved from rooftop to rooftop until he ended up in this church's belfry.  Carefully he negotiated the stairwells and corridors to end up here.

 

With his booty safety stashed behind the baptistery, he'd slept soundly.  Perhaps it had been that he was unaware of the stories attached to the sanctuary he'd sought out.  Or perhaps he simply didn't care.  His dreams were undisturbed, peaceful, as one would expect they would be in a church and he'd awakened to this incredible display formed by the marriage of sun and colored glass.

 

"Why are you here, my son?"

 

The voice startled Sam and he looked around.  A man was standing in the shadows caught by the columns.  As he took a step out, Sam saw that he was a man of the cloth, a bishop, or so Sam thought.  He wasn't really versed in such things.  The bishop's face, however, remained dark, hidden except in silhouette.

 

"Oh, hi, Bishop...?"

 

"You may call me Thomas."

 

"Okay, Bishop Thomas, how's it goin'?" Sam asked, immediately wishing that he hadn't made it sound so flippant.  That is something that people remembered and Sam's continued success as a thief depended upon his not being remembered.

 

"I am well, but you have not answered my original question.  Why are you here?  Spiritual guidance?"

 

"Not exactly, more like," Sam paused, his mind racing.  What did people use the church for, besides the obvious?

 

"Sanctuary, perhaps?"

 

"Yeah, sure, sanctuary," Sam said, grabbing the opportunity. There was an awkward pause and finally Sam blurted out, "Your windows are really beautiful."

 

"Thank you," the bishop answered, moving slightly to keep his face clothed within the blanket of darkness.  "So few people come any more.  Not since...then."

 

"Whacha mean?"  Sam took a few steps towards him, then stopped as if an invisible wall had erected itself.  He laughingly referred to it as his wall of protection, a buffer zone between him and danger.  It was a sense that had kept him alive and safe for years.  Sort of like the big moats they used at the zoo for the big cats, a safe zone between them and the public.  You could look all you want, but you were protected at the same time all without a restricted view.

 

Sam was puzzled though.  Why had it happened here, in a church, talking to a bishop?  There was no apparent danger.  The bishop was a man of the cloth, after all.  This was a holy place, a safe haven for anyone who sought it out.

 

Then a nerve started to twitch in Sam's left eye.  He remembered the story now and knew the reason why no one came to this place.  It had been abandoned long ago, for reasons that the church authorities tried to keep hidden.

 

A bishop had gone mad there one Sunday, killed half the congregation before taking several women hostage and performed things that, to Sam's way of thinking, a bishop had no right knowing about, much less doing. 

 

It had been a bloody, horrible incident, for the killer had mutilated the women, then himself long before the police could break into the vestry.

 

When they found him, he was still alive, but dying, a mass of torn and disfigured flesh.  When asked why, he had no reason, no apparent recollection of the attack at all.  He died cursing the church and all within it.

 

It was only after his death that the full impact of the situation came to light.  There had been drug addiction which had followed a head injury, then a history of macabre sexual acts that the church had covered up.  There was even hints of attempted murder that had been all by hidden within the folds of the church.  After all, he had been a bishop, a man of importance, a man of God.

 

No one would return to the church after that.  Bankrupted, the doors had closed and rumors of hauntings naturally began to circulate.  As decay encroached, so did the stories until not even little boys, with their propensity for window breaking, approached the structure.

 

"Why do you stay in the shadows, Bishop Thomas," Sam asked, his voice crawling up a nervous octave.  "You really should see this for yourself."

 

"I am condemned to the shadows," was the answer.  "As are you condemned for your crimes against society.  It's too late to for either of us to repent our destiny."

 

"It's time for me to go," Sam said.  He took a step towards the door, but the figure was faster, moving in front of him, the sunlight reflecting against his dark vestments in rainbow-colored splendor.

 

It was then that Sam saw the bishop's face and he screamed, the first real scream he'd ever uttered in his life.  He turned and ran as if the devil himself was in pursuit and Sam wasn't too sure that wasn't the case.

 

The huge double doors of the church fought him, but Sam's panic and fear were such that they couldn't have stopped him had they been blocked shut by giant boulders.  Nothing could have stopped him, at least not until he ran directly out into the path of a cement truck.

 

The driver reacted, but there was simply no time, no warning and then, no Sam.  Always eager for a spectacle, a cluster of people flocked around the broken body of the thief as Sam tried to sputter out his story.  The words drowned in his throat as he looked up at the stained glass windows one last time.

           

From one of the spired towers, he crouched among the gargoyles as if he was one of them and watched the crowd below.  People's thirst for this sort of display both amazed and sickened him. 

 

"Were you successful, sir?"  It was the voice of his butler in his ear and he nodded, although the butler couldn't see him.  He was cloistered away in the cave, speaking to his employer via a wireless mike.

 

"Too much so, I'm afraid.  Sam just got himself painted all over the asphalt by an obliging cement truck.  Now we're back to square one."  He pulled a bit of spirit gum from his cheek.  It was going to take him a week to get it all off, probably just as long to find the hiding spot for the stolen figurines.

 

"A pity, Master Bruce, but he who lives by the sword will also perish from it.  Will you be coming in now?"

 

"Yeah, it's time for all good bats to be back in their cave."

He took one more look over the edge as an ambulance and several cop cars pulled up.  "Sorry it had to end this way, Sam, but you should know not to mess with God...or Batman."  He stepped off the edge of the parapet and was gone.

 


End file.
